


Questions, Apologies, and Carbs

by ZoS



Series: 'Tis the Season [1]
Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 05:06:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19192384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoS/pseuds/ZoS
Summary: Andy has the flu.





	Questions, Apologies, and Carbs

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to just be a short, fluffy piece, but you know me.

"What is this?" Miranda asks like she would about a particularly atrocious dress or an incorrectly ordered lunch disturbing the organized chaos on her desk. Right now, it's a reddened nose, watery eyes, and Andrea coughing wretchedly as she ushers her inside and immediately steps away. It can't make that much of a difference in the small apartment with the windows shut against the harsh New York winter.

"I'm sorry, I forgot to cancel." Andrea's voice is low and nasaly, coming through what must be a stuffy nose, and for once she forgets all about her perfect manners and heads straight for the bedroom, Miranda in her wake.

It's not that they made a specific plan, something to cancel, so much as a general one, an agreement: if Miranda has the time, she comes over in a discreet cab, they spend a few hours tangled between the sheets or under the shower head or trying to fit together on the narrow living room sofa, and Miranda leaves, if she's feeling generous, only once the afterglow has faded. And she always texts before arriving, but--

"I was asleep, I guess I didn't hear my phone," Andrea answers an unspoken question while crawling back under the covers. To say that the bed is unmade would be a gentle assesment: the blanket is wrinkled, one pillow has fallen off the side of the bed, and the sheets are soaked in sweat even as Andrea shudders in her balled-up position, teeth chattering. For a crazy moment, Miranda gets the urge to change the sheets for her and chalks it up to a maternal instinct, even though she came tonight with the sole intention of fucking Andrea.

"What's wrong with you?" she inquires and somehow the words come out hard and judgemental instead of tender, her voice refusing to comply with her concern. If Andrea takes offense, she shows no sign, just lifts glassy eyes to meet Miranda's.

"Flu," is her plain response, a sea of misery in one syllable. "It's going around at work. I had to call in sick."

Now that Miranda has her answer, she doesn't know what else to say. In the back of her throat, various questions scratch at her vocal chords, trying to force their way out: _Should I leave? Can I help? How are you feeling?_ She asks none of them; they would imply that she cares beyond the physical aspect, that this goes farther than what they've done so far.

But she doesn't leave either. It's not exactly voluntary, not exactly through conscious thought that she places her bag on a chair that must be covered in the germs swimming around the sealed apartment and presses a tentative hand to Andrea's warm forehead.

"I think you have a fever," she states flatly, her words measured and to the point. "Where's your thermometer?"

"Um..." Andrea swallows and stretches a feeble arm behind her. "In the bathroom, I think, but--" It's too late. With a hand pressed to her mouth, she stumbles out of bed, barely misses colliding with Miranda, and makes a beeline for the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

Miranda thinks that the last time she heard someone throw up was when Caroline was sick with her own bout of flu, and is suddenly reminded of how young Andrea is, closer to her daughters' age than hers. Only a few years younger and her mother would be tending to her in her childhood bedroom, doing a far better job than Miranda at providing the good, old TLC.

She stands outside the bathroom, the door a thousand-ton barrier between Andrea and her: Andrea, suffering inside; Miranda, listening outside, unable to help. Or rather, unable to muster the ability to help.

Andrea is not her partner, not her _girlfriend_ , as plebeian and childish as that title sounds; that would require some sort of connection on an emotional level. It would require going out to dinner and inquiring about each others' days and cuddling after sex and they don't do that. They have sex and no cuddles and nothing else.

They're not friends either; Miranda doesn't have friends, not real ones like Andrea has in spades and she would never choose someone like Miranda to be a part of that category. Which is fine by Miranda, who has no time or patience or willingness to form friendships this late in life, ones that call for loyalty and dedication and years' worth of shared experiences and memories. For that same reason, she has no interest in anything more substantial, more complicated than scratching an itch and getting it out of her and Andrea's system until the next time. Her life is plenty complicated and there's simply no room for inconsequential things such as love.

Since Andrea is not her partner nor her friend, then, there is no reason for her to stay in her apartment, rooted to the floor outside the bathroom door, listening to the heaving inside with no tools to help or offer the right words.

She opens the bathroom door and, in a $2,400 _Oscar de la Renta_ dress, kneels on the cold tiles and holds her not-girlfriend-not-friend's hair out of the way as Andrea drops her head into the toilet bowl for another round of emptying her stomach of its already scarce contents. When she's finished, she doesn't scoot away from the toilet, but flushes the water nonetheless and rests a reddened cheek against the seat.

Miranda lets go of her hair, smoothing it out across her shoulder blades and tucking one side of it behind an ear lest it dangles into the toilet. Some of it is sweat-soaked, the bangs sticking to Andrea's forehead, not immaculately straight as she usually wears them but also not sexy in the ragged, dirty sort of shape they take after sex.

This time, Miranda doesn't ask questions like: _Do you want water? Where do you keep your towels? What can I do to help?_ She doesn't ask; she acts. She stands up and from the floor, Andrea mutters in a small, wounded voice, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Stop apologizing," Miranda admonishes stiffly. Everything about her is stiff: her posture, her facial muscles, her movements as she grabs a cup from the counter and fills it with tap water, as she rummages through the cupboards, knowing she doesn't belong in this environment, feeling that she's invading Andrea's personal space. It's ironic to feel that way after putting her mouth and hands on Andrea's most private body parts. After making her come and listening to her beg and getting as good as she gives, it's ridiculous to feel awkward around her toothbrush and lotions, things that get to touch Andrea less intimately about as often as Miranda does.

She tries not to look too much around her as she wets a hand towel and, almost as an afterthought, opens the medicine cabinet above the sink, finds a bottle of _Tylenol_ , and empties two tablets onto her palm. When she shuts the cabinet door, the image in the attached mirror is perplexing: Miranda Priestly, taking care of a grown-up, the person who scratches the itch. It occurs to her in that moment that the slumped figure reflected behind her has somehow become, in recent months, the closest person to her, the one she shares the most free time and interactions with. It's a sad fact, considering that there's barely any interaction beyond the basic, primal one. And it's also a happy fact, because she can't think of anyone else in her life she would rather spend that time with. She turns away, turns her back on the woman she doesn't recognize.

"Here, take these," she murmurs, putting the medicine in Andrea's left hand and the water cup in her right one. Andrea grimaces at the prospect of swallowing anything, but puts up no fight. She gags after the second pill slides down her throat, leaning back into the toilet, but nothing more than heavy, labored breaths leaves her lips this time and, once confident that nothing will, she moves away and leans her head back against the wall for Miranda to place the damp towel on her forehead.

"Sorry I ruined our night," she mumbles, her voice raspy from the previous strain on her throat and her words slightly slurred with her fever-induced delirium, but other than that she sounds appropriately bitter about the shittiness of the situation. Miranda glares. "Right. No apologizing."

Miranda flips the towel so the cooler side makes contact with Andrea's heated forehead, and with closed eyes and messy hair and pale cheeks, she receives a dopey, grateful smile and realizes that giving Andrea this gift of her much needed help could feel a lot worse and perhaps this is exactly where she belongs at the moment.

\---

Andy wakes up in a pool of sweat, kicked off sheets, and smelly pajamas that cling to her skin. Instead of being enveloped by darkness, soft light streams into the room from the rest of the apartment and a stroke of chilly air hits the exposed parts of her body, cooling down the sweat that has made it sticky and unbearable. In her current haze, the world feels timeless, a moment lost in time and space, drifting alone through another plane of existence where nothing and everything is possible.

A sharp noise startles her back into reality, back into her physical body, and she finds that her legs are shaky and weak when she forces them onto the ground, makes them carry her exhausted body into the kitchen, the source of the sound.

That is where she finds Miranda and decides she must still be sleeping, trapped in a feverish dream, because Miranda is standing at the counter, wearing Nate's forgotten apron, cutting vegetables on an old, worn-out, used-to-be-orange cutting board. Vegetables that Andy knows for a fact she doesn't have in her house. Carrots. Potatoes. Leeks. Celery. Zucchinis. The counter's surface is covered in chopped-up pieces, which Miranda gathers up into expert hands and carefully tosses into a boiling pot on the stove, the steam rising into the air with the addition of the ingredients and mingling with the cold wind from the open window.

"What's going on?" Andy murmurs, even her voice sounding unreal to her ears, distant and heavy to get out.

Miranda spins from her position at the stove, a wooden spon in one hand and a spooked expression on her face, as if she didn't intend to be seen, as if she's been caught doing something she shouldn't have. Andy concedes that that might be the case: Miranda in her kitchen, wearing an apron over a designer dress and cooking, is a picture that doesn't make sense, two puzzle pieces that don't fit together.

But Miranda regains control of herself quickly enough, resuming her look of authority and air of importance, turning back to her fragrant concoction as if completing a mundane, daily task. "How are you feeling?" she asks in lieu of an answer, her voice neutral.

Andy replies half-truthfully, "Better," and plops into a chair at the kitchen table, because even while the _Tylenol_ and sleep achieved their symptom- and mind-clearing effect, her muscles ache, she feels sticky and disgusting, and another nap or three could definitely come in handy.

"There's some bread on the table." Miranda gestures behind her but doesn't turn around. "You could use the carbs after puking your guts out," which is likely a sentence she's uttered to no one ever. Up until this very moment, Andy wasn't sure Miranda even knew that carbs existed, but sure enough, there are sliced pieces of a baguette before her in a basket she didn't even know she owned.

That is also when another gust of wind emerges from the night outside, hitting Andy's face with its refreshing breath; the smells of cooking vegetables from the stove fill the room further, and the world clears a little more. "Did you go shopping?" she asks and tries to figure out which stores in her neighborhood are open at this time of night. What the time is to begin with.

"You had nothing for chicken soup but onions," Miranda responds, her tone just that touch of accusing, as if Andy should have known better. She supposes she should have; should have stocked her fridge better, should have taken better care of herself.

Guilty, she murmurs, "So--" and cuts herself off when Miranda turns her back to the pot and her face to her, fingers curling around the edge of the counter behind her as a crooked smile lifts one corner of her lips, her amusement reminding Andy of her earlier scolding but promising her that she isn't in any real trouble. "Sorry," she apologizes for apologizing.

"When did you learn to cook?" she questions when Miranda returns her attention to her work. She also breathes in the fresh, welcomed air, which frees up one of her nostrils. She's not very hungry, even though her stomach feels empty and hollow, but she reaches for the bread basket out of respect for Miranda's efforts and prays she'll be able to keep it down.

"Might I remind you that I have two kids?" is Miranda's casual and only slightly duh-you-idiot answer.

Andy feels comfortable enough, accepted enough to quip, "Who have a nanny," and wonders whether the overworked woman in question has been called back to the townhouse at this late hour of the night so Miranda could spend a portion of it she never has at the other side of town, taking care of Andy. Another flash of guilt engulfs her until Miranda's eyes meet hers and narrow. She doesn't grace Andy with a response this time, but Andy wasn't really expecting one in the first place.

"Blow on this," Miranda says some time later as she places a steaming bowl of yellow liquid in front of Andy. Pieces of chicken, vegetables, and noodles are swimming in it, absorbing its wetness and spreading their unique tastes and smells through the curved shape of the dish. The feeling of surrealism returns to Andy: the act of eating soup long after dinnertime, being watched from a chair across the table by Miranda, who's not eating soup, who went tonight from being something in Andy's life to being someone.

These are questions Andy asks: _Did you go to a lot of trouble making this? Can I help clean up? Will you stay the night?_

Miranda's answers are: _No. No. Yes._

Later, with a clear plate and a bread-padded stomach and newly gained strength in her muscles and bones, Andy leans back in her chair and offers a wry smile. "I'm glad I ruined our night."


End file.
